


Sleep Easy (With Me)

by Zaffie



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: BFFs Make Traumas Better, Because They Are BFFs, But Look It's A One-Shot, But Read Into It What You Will, From a prompt, Gen, I Feel Like I Have Tagged Well Today, I Have Some, In Which Reade And Zapata Bond, One-Shot, Star Wars PJs, Thanks Claudia, The Snuggling Is Below Average Snuggling, With Traumas And Stuff, You Da Shizz, i love them, pretty platonic, what do you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9614840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: Alone in his apartment with a busted leg, Reade is thinking too much to sleep. He turns to his partner for help. Because she's the best. At least, that's how Zapata puts it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a prompt that the lovely Claudia left for me. It was all her idea, and I love how it's turned out. Thanks, Claudia! This is for you :)

Before her mind even registers that she’s awake, Tasha’s body is moving. The sound of her phone cuts into her dreams and she’s rolling over, grabbing it and pressing it to her ear before she realises that she hasn’t woken up enough to speak yet.

     It doesn’t matter, anyway, because Reade says, “I’m sorry, never mind,” and hangs up.

     Well. Tasha flops back onto the pillow and stares up into the darkness of her bedroom. She waits.

     Slowly, everything starts filtering in. She’s cold where one leg is sticking out from under the covers, and she’s still got her phone clutched in her hand. It had definitely been Reade’s voice that she’d heard, and he’d sounded dazed and scratchy with sleep.

     Tasha lifts the phone back up to her face, squints at the brightness as she unlocks it, and half-blindly jabs her finger at Reade’s name on the screen until it calls him back.

     He answers and says, “I told you, it’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

     “Too late,” Tasha says. She sounds as tired as she feels. “I can’t. What’s going on?”

     There’s silence for a moment on the other end. A heavy breath from Reade, a long, slow sigh. “I shouldn’t have called you,” he admits. “I’m sorry.”

     Tasha’s head feels heavy, throbbing a little. She struggles to sit up so that she can actually concentrate on the conversation. Scratches on her shoulder and bruises on her rib twinge as she moves, and the slow-healing cut on her head redoubles its throbbing, pounding into her.

     “I don’t care about getting woken up,” Tasha tells Reade, which is a lie, because she goddamn hates it when people wake her up, _especially_ with stupid phone calls. What she means is that she doesn’t care about Reade waking her up. Not tonight, not ever.

     “You sound pissed,” he says.

     “I’m not pissed. Just sore.”

     “How’s the concussion?” Reade asks.

     “I’ll live. How’s the leg?”

     “Still attached.”

     There’s another silence. Tasha leans back against the headboard and the wall behind her bed, lets her breath out. Pulls the covers a little higher up, because she’s still cold, and lets her gaze wander around the room. It’s black, completely black. Not even any light from the street, although that’s mostly due to Tasha’s amazing curtains. God, she loves those curtains.

     “Reade?”

     “Yeah,” he says.

     “Are you gonna tell me why you called?”

     Something rustles through the phone – clothes, bedsheets? Reade clears his throat. “It’s stupid.”

     “You’re always stupid,” Tasha retorts. “Tell me.”

     “Nah, it’s – really, you can just go back to sleep. I’m fine, Zapata.”

     “Tell me?” Tasha says, soft, coaxing it out of him.

     Another long sigh through the phone, and Reade mumbles, “Just wanted to hear your voice, I guess.”

     Tasha had figured. She’s had those nights herself; endless, dragging nights where the black closes in and she can’t breathe through the fear or the pain or the memories. Nights where she’d give anything not to be alone.

     Usually, those are the nights she goes out, and she’ll get rip-roaring drunk in a bar which is never dark, and never silent. If it’s really bad she’ll take a guy home with her, lie awake in bed after he’s done and listen to him breathing.

     She’s called Reade before only twice, and both times she’d felt guilty as hell. Hung up before he answered, the first time, and the second time she’d asked some inane question, pretended she was out somewhere and a little drunk. Being the asshole who drunk-dialled her partner was better than being vulnerable.

     “You wanna hang out?” Tasha asks.

     “What?” he says, startled, and then he adds, “No, no, no way. It’s, like, two in the morning, Tasha, and I shouldn’t even have called you, this is way out of line.”

     “Yeah,” Tasha agrees. “I’m coming over.”

     Reade says, “Hey! You shouldn’t-”

     She hangs up on him, turns the phone screen away from herself to use as a torch, and swings her legs out of bed. The room spins when she stands up; she’s been dizzy since the bomb, nauseous and exhausted and the throbbing in her head never ends.

     As always, though, Reade takes priority over her own wellbeing. Gotta get to Reade. She’s too dizzy to change her clothes but she finds an overcoat as she stumbles to the front door. Long enough to cover most of her pyjamas, and she puts on a pair of high boots, zips them up and staggers in the heel, even though it’s only an inch high.

     Tasha makes her way onto the street and hails a taxi.

 

 

Reade tells himself she isn’t coming, that she hung up to go back to sleep and that she doesn’t care. He tells himself this while he drags himself out of bed, hobbles with his crutches to the door, and slumps onto the closest sofa.

     He’s still insisting that she won’t come when she knocks on the door.

     “Let me in,” she says. “I’m fucking tired, Reade.”

     He opens the door and Tasha steps inside. Reade says, “Hi.”

     “Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, unzipping her boots, shucking the long coat she’s wearing and letting it pool on the floor. She’s got on a long-sleeved grey shirt and loose black pants underneath.

     “Pyjamas?” Reade asks her.

     “Yup.” She looks Reade up and down, smirks at him. “I like your Star Wars PJs, nerd.”

     “I’m not a nerd,” Reade says. He starts to lever himself up with his crutch and Zapata is suddenly there in front of him, grabbing his arm.

     She shakes her head. “Shouldn’t be walking.”

     “I had to let you in, didn’t I?”

     “Oh,” she says. “Hm. Yeah.” Zapata closes her eyes, opens them again and frowns at Reade. “You kissed me,” she accuses him. “I forgot.”

     “You’re tired,” Reade says quickly. “You can have the bed – I should sleep on the couch, probably. Better for my leg.”

     “No it’s not,” she tells him. “Go back to bed. I’m coming too, so you’re not lonely.” Tasha fixes Reade with shrewd eyes. “What did you dream about?”

     “Who said I dreamed?” he asks her.

     “Look, nerd-”

     “I’m not a nerd.”

     They’re halfway to the bedroom and Reade’s leaning on his crutch even though Zapata has slid herself under his arm, somehow, and is doing her best to support him. She looks out of it; a little tired, a little dizzy. Concussion and woken-up-at-two-am-itis, Reade thinks.

     “Was it about the bomb?” Tasha asks. “Because even I’ve been having nightmares about that crap.”

     “Not the bomb.” Reade has barely thought about the bomb, actually. Trapped down there, in the dark, with Nas – those aren’t the memories that are haunting him.

     Tasha gets quiet for a moment. Her voice is soft when she asks, “…Freddy?”

     “Him,” Reade admits. “Other kids I knew. Coach Jones. That tape.”

     “You didn’t watch it,” she says, but she sounds worried, like she thinks he has.

     “I didn’t watch it,” Reade confirms. “But I can’t stop wondering about it. About what was on there, and why.”

     “Reade.”

     “It’s stupid,” he says, “I know. The coach is dead, and whatever happened was over years ago, and I can’t remember anything new, no matter how hard I try. I can’t even remember anything weird. I barely remember him touching me on the shoulder.”

     “Is that what’s bothering you?”

     “That and – I just stood there and watched him, Tasha. He was dying. I watched it happen – I _saw_ him go. He was choking on it, choking on the blood, and I didn’t move an inch.”

     “He was a bad guy, Reade.”

     “I’m the guy who let him bleed out on the floor,” Reade says. “What does that make me?”

     Tasha’s arm is tight around his middle. “You’re my best friend,” she says, “and an FBI agent. You’re always a good guy.”

     There’s enough warmth in her voice to make Reade’s skin feel hot. She’s husky with sleep, hints of an accent bleeding into her words. Tasha had spoken Spanish before she spoke English, Reade knows, and he hears it sometimes. When she’s tired, or scared, or yelling at him; her vowels round out and her consonants flatten.

     That’s what being a partner means. Knowing someone well enough to have all their little quirks pinned down to an exact science. Reade doesn’t protest when Tasha throws herself onto his bed, patting the space beside her.

     “Hurry up,” she says. “Getting cold.”

     “It’s not cold.”

     “Some of us don’t have two-hundred and thirty pounds to keep warm with.”

     “It’s all muscle,” Reade says. “You wish you had this much muscle.”

     “Mm-hm.” She rolls onto her back, hair across the pillow, looking up at him. “You getting in or what?”

     “You’re on my side.”

     Zapata glares at him, but she scoots over to the other end of the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. Reade sits down with his back to her, the bed dipping under him. He puts his head in his hands. Tasha throws an arm out and tugs at his shirt.

     “I’m okay,” Reade says.

     “Stop moping. Lie down.”

     He does what she orders, flat on his back, blankets draped over him. The room is silvery with the light from outside, but Reade doesn’t want to close his curtains. He isn’t sure if he can handle the darkness right now.

     To her credit, Tasha doesn’t complain. He knows she hates sleeping in light rooms. They’ve argued about it on stakeouts, on overnight missions, any time they’ve ended up in the same place at night. Usually, Reade is the one who caves.

     “Do you want to talk?” Tasha asks him.

     “I don’t think so.”

     She yawns. “I got your back, Reade,” she says, sleepily. She pats his shoulder. He reaches a hand out over the top of the covers and rests it on her hip.

     The room gets quiet after that. Reade keeps his eyes open, staring at the light on the ceiling. He listens to Zapata breathe; can tell when it changes, gets deeper and slower with that little stutter-catch that means she’s asleep.  

     It’s easier for Reade to get himself under control when Tasha is here. He focuses on her; the sound of her, and the rise and fall of her hip under his hand. Her hair, splayed across the pillow and brushing Reade’s neck. The knowledge that when he opens his eyes, she’ll be here.

     With Tasha, Reade feels safe enough to sleep.


End file.
